Busting the 21-Day Habit Myth
There’s a myth that it takes “just 21 days…” to change a habit. Many a weight loss or exercise plan has been created around that myth…
Do you recognize these habits—aka patterns of behavior—in your life? That’s all a habit it… a pattern.
Sleeping on the right or left side of the bed
Hitting the snooze button when you first wake up
Turning on the morning news
Combing/curling fixing your hair
They are all habits you developed…there was a point in life when you didn’t do most of those things.
Habits can be created, changed, discarded…
A habit is really just the brain’s way of being efficient.  Once a pattern is familiar, it gets encoded in the lower brain, think of it like a program that runs in the background of your mind like part of a computer operating system.
In fact, an operating system is probably a terrific analogy—when you’re learning something new or changing a pattern, it requires FOCUS until it’s systemized.
The focus required to change a habit is more than a wish, more than a hope, more than a willingness, it’s a decision you make every day—maybe many times a day.
Let’s take overeating—or even more specifically —eating in the afternoon…you know? Those hours between lunch and dinner when snacks find their way into your mouth.How do you stop snacking?
Recognize it’s a pattern.
The pattern is an action in response to a feeling or sensation…
Ask yourself what that feeling is…? Is it stress? Hunger? Boredom?
Why? Â Why are you feeling that way?
Be curious, not judgmental.  (Because you can’t change anything when you’re beating yourself up — Remember Mindset Secret #1)
Congratulations—you’ve just done a thought model! This analysis will always help you get the root cause of your thinking, and thus, what’s driving your behavior.
Your goal is to get to the root cause of the habit.
Then you look at that root cause—the reason you’re feeling that way.
From there, you start thinking, feeling, and acting intentionally to create your new habit—not snacking in the afternoon.
How long it takes to build a habit
In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, a team of researchers decided to figure out just how long it actually takes to form a habit. The study examined the habits of 96 people over a 12-week period. Each person chose one new habit for the 12 weeks and reported each day on whether or not they did the behavior and how automatic the behavior felt. Some people chose simple habits like “drinking a bottle of water with lunch.” Others chose more difficult tasks like “running for 15 minutes before dinner.” At the end of the 12 weeks, the researchers analyzed the data to determine how long it took each person to go from starting a new behavior to automatically doing it.
On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact.
In the study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit.
Set your expectations!  21 days to a new you…not so much.  66? Maybe. . .
Some good news… researchers also found that “missing one opportunity to perform the behavior did not materially affect the habit formation process.” So hey, messing up won’t wreck the habit-forming process. Remember:
Don’t get down on yourself…change takes time and habits DEFINITELY take time to get to that lower brain operating system.
You don’t have to be perfect…be imperfect, but keep at it.
Learn from the days you don’t quite get to the habit creation…celebrate progress along the way.
Embrace the journey. Â Habit-forming is really about the journey, not the destination. Â Commit to the process.
The only way to get to Day 500 is to start with Day 1. So forget about the number and focus on doing the work!!
